Thursday, February 27, 2014

Something Different


Yours truly on bass back in the early 90's, "grung" era. Around this time I was cohabiting with an 80's rocker g/f of mine. Ha.. she was so jealous of my hair. 'Funny stuff. It was "wash 'n wear"..i.e..no curling, teasing, or coloring. A lil' Aqua Net up top for some height, and I was good to go. In this video, though, I'm sportin' a doo rag. This is a song off of our 3rd studio album, "Strange and Beautiful", the first album that we actually covered a few songs, one of those being this song, "The Chant", the other being *"Sympathy for the Devil" by the Stones. Noooo, not "Stone Temple Pilots", the Rolling Stones...i.e...the guys who make me feel and look like a spring chicken. Anyway, I reluctantly gave in to doing covers, and, well, we spruced this one up pretty good, I guess. The background "singers" on the recording were actually Patti La Belle's background singers at the time(trivia, I'm loaded with it).  I guess I don't need to point out that the two Caucasian hotties aren't the aforementioned singers? The vid's producer brought them in to twerk, I suppose to get more dudes to watch the video. Although we are known for being pioneers of the Progressive-metal movement, this album was a departure from that style. To explain why would require a novel.

* was intended as a single, so it won't be found on the album.    

6 comments:

Robert said...

I love that album cover to cover - always have from first listen. One of my all time faves

Alice said...

That is really cool:)

boomSLANG said...

"I love that album cover to cover - always have from first listen. One of my all time faves" ~ R. Hall

Thx for the kind words. It's the lighter side of all the stuff we've done, and on top of that, we were dealing with the limitations of one individual due to his lifestyle, plus, we had a major label backing us. For the Prog' fans, we most def' threw them a curve ball = )

"That is really cool" ~ Alice

Thx, and thx for watching!

Robert said...

I was just going through the CG discography with my Girlfriend and we were discussing the musical paths of the band and the styles and their merits.

I remember first hearing S&B and I thought that it was as if you all were following a similar path that the great Led Zeppelin did when following two similar and iconic albums of LZ1 and LZ2 with the very different yet equally genius music of LZ3 (again one of my all time faves for it's uniqueness). I remember thinking how brilliant and ballsy of a move to depart from that iconic CG formula - again, I loved S&B from square one and have always thought it showed a confidence and capability rarely found with most bands.

I was recently reading some forums regarding the album and despite the "curve ball" I'd say a majority of fans like this album on it's face - but it's hard for them to have the same love in context with the sound CG was originally known for.

To me, it's different - and that's what gave it it's appeal to me - different strokes i guess - still I continue to argue it's something to be proud of.

FYI - I think most people will tell you, I don't offer kind words for the sake of being kind ... i offer them because i feel they are warranted/earned. If i didn't like something I'd have no problem telling you as much ;)

Hope to see you at Stones of Madness show tonight :)

Peace

Anonymous said...

'X' For me it all started in '86 , I loved it because of the music not because of the 'hot' guy's & hairstyle.
S&B sounded very different to me but not bad at all.
Now it's time to share more of DM ;) !!

boomSLANG said...

"I remember thinking how brilliant and ballsy of a move to depart from that iconic CG formula" ~ R. Hall

Ballsy, yes, but if it was a brilliant move, it was hardly planned. We love our European/Japanese fan-base, yes, but we wanted success in our home country for a change. A guy from a major label heard a few demos and noticed the 'Zepp similarities, immediately asking, "Do you have more songs like this?". So, yeah, I'd say it took some cajones to follow the proverbial dollar signs, but in retrospect, I don't know how brilliant it was to do so. In any case, I appreciate the kind words. Thx, bro'

"Now it's time to share more of DM ;) !!" ~ X

'Working hard at it! We're self-produced/self-financed, just like a gazillion bands out there. We're writing more songs, many of which I'm glad to report deal with humanistic concepts ;)